A New Website—or Maybe Just a Makeover

Are you tired of your dated website but not up to creating a new one? 

There may be a workaround

If your site was built in WordPress, in many cases we can apply a new design theme to achieve a complete transformation. I’m working on one of these projects now, and it’s a remarkably easy solution that dramatically extends a website’s shelf life. Rather than a new website, maybe just a makeover would be the right solution for you. 

My client is a small CPA firm with some specialties—that are not getting promoted

Their site is nearly eight years old. While the new theme is a significant improvement, there remains the matter of new content, images and improved navigation. In the last few years, new partners with unique specialties have joined the firm and it’s time to promote their expertise.

• Besides being a CPA, “John” has a real estate background, does appraisals and works with industry clients to put financial systems into place. Having been a real estate agent, he knows that financials can be somewhat chaotic for real estate industry professionals. 
• “Sarah” is doing some work as an outsourced CFO. She’s working with several of her clients to take a more strategic role. She works closely with the firms’ bookkeepers for day-to-day accounting, which frees her up to take on a more strategic role. Sarah is doing forecasting, putting financial systems in place, analyzing cash flow and taxes. It’s a win-win for clients and Sarah—tax season is relatively stress-free.
• One of the partners has a Ph.D. in taxation and years of experience. He also teaches a class at UCBerkeley. Time to promote this guy! 

Their old site was not showcasing their skills or expertise

My clients launched their site without a thought to SEO or attracting new clients. Like many of us, they were delighted to have it finished! But they know they’ve been missing opportunities. We: 

• Identified lively new images that are representative of their typical clients, and we updated the homepage slider, adding visual appeal and energy to their site.
• Rewrote their bios to showcase their wide range of experience. One partner works with international clients to keep them in compliance with US tax laws. 
• Developed case studies that showcase how they work with their clients. Working with a CPA can be intimidating. People want to know about timing, the process, what they need to bring to their first meeting. They want to know about confidentiality. 
• Updated the testimonial page so endorsements are fully fleshed out.
• Turned the business name into a logo and tagline with use of a more stylish font. It has more marketing presence now.
• Fleshed out the Yoast plugin on the backend to improve SEO.
• Added calls to action, making it easy for a user to contact them for more information.

A series of incremental changes contributed to an important website makeover

If your site is dated and not generating leads, rather than starting from scratch with a whole new site, think of a makeover. This might be a solution for you. 

Contact us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing experts. 

Case Study: Business Doubles Revenue Month/Month

Sometimes we forget how effective case studies can be. Rather than just telling your audience what you do, this is an opportunity to actually demonstrate your ability to effect change, to showcase your expertise, to document how you’ve successfully helped your clients increase sales.

Let’s revisit a case study from more than a year ago

In the original article, we took a look at how one small Napa Valley business owner used two simple online tools to significantly increase his revenue. Now more than a year later, those same two online tools have actually doubled his revenue, month-over-month.

Bill Ryan has lived in St. Helena for more than 40 years. He retired years ago after a long, successful career in sales and marketing management positions at Beringer. Bill’s a busy guy. An avid fisherman, he writes a weekly fishing report for the Napa Valley Registerand a monthly column for the St. Helena Star. Bill also has a little mobile notary business. When we met, I wondered why a marketing guy’s only form of advertising was a pathetic bumper sticker that said “Notary”.

A simple website to dramatically increase Bill’s visibility

A simple website would be easy and inexpensive to develop. It would dramatically increase his visibility for prospective new clients—especially visitors to Napa Valley who might need to notarize documents while they’re here. I eventually wore Bill down. We collaborated on content, scheduled a photoshoot, identified and uploaded images, purchased and set up a domain and launched St. Helena Notary on the Go within just a few weeks.

Next up: Leveraging the power of Yelp

When I asked Bill why he wasn’t on Yelp, he didn’t really have an answer. His is the kind of business for which Yelp can be effective, so we created a Yelp page and uploaded a few images. Yelp won’t work without reviews, so Bill began asking his clients for reviews. For some, he follows up with an email, thanking them for their business — this is Relationship Building 101, and it’s been extremely successful for Bill.

The results: Bill’s business has doubled month/month as he’s increased his visibility

Bill’s client list includes a fair number of regular corporate clients, lots of old friends and neighbors. Increasingly, however, he’s getting calls from people around the country–New York, Washington DC, Portland, Dallas and LA. They’re either on their way to Napa Valley or already here and need to have documents notarized. They find him through Google or Yelp and love his 5-star reviews.

A simple website and a Yelp page are doing their jobs

These very fundamental online assets are responsible for Bill’s dramatic month/month revenue growth at an extremely modest cost.

Including an actual client in a case study provides validity, but if there are privacy issues, don’t. But do provide details. Show how you helped a client solve problems, increase revenue, streamline operations, open up new marketing channels. Questions about incorporating case studies into your marketing plan? Give me a call!

Case Study: A New Website for UpValley Notary

Bill Ryan lives in St. Helena, and like many people in the area, he came to the Napa Valley to work in the wine industry. Bill relocated from Rhode Island some 40 years ago, when there were fewer than 20 wineries, compared to more than 400 today. As the sales and marketing director for Beringer Winery, he helped grow the premium wine’s international footprint for more than 20 years.

As a mobile notary, he needed a web presence

Bill’s retired now, but he’s always busy. He fishes whenever he can and writes a fishing weekly column for the Napa Valley Register and another for St. Helena Star. He also has a little mobile notary business serving the towns of the Napa Valley—St. Helena, Angwin, Napa, Calistoga and Yountville. He’s not interested in being swamped, but he enjoys growing his business, interacting with his clients and meeting new people. Bill wanted a simple website—nothing elaborate–what can you say about meeting someone at his/her home or office to sign documents, after all? But if you’re in business these days, you need a web presence.

We discussed a few options and decided on Gutensite

I’ve build a couple of websites in this platform before, and was delighted with the results. The technology is responsive design and looks great across devices. It’s modular; the pages, such as blogs and testimonials, are autoformatted so they turn out looking polished and professional. I’ve tried using the so-called DIY, WISYWIG platforms like Wix and SquareSpace—they’re supposed to be easy and foolproof. I’m fairly savvy–I’ve worked in WordPress for years, but I think these applications are confusing, and I would never tackle a WordPress site on my own. Gutensite is very easy to use, and here’s the really great part: they have a responsive, courteous technical-support team who’s there for you to work through the small details that would completely sabotage you in other applications. Best of all, for a simple website, Gutensite’s price is hard to beat: $15/month, including hosting.

Do you really need WordPress’ 2,000+ themes?

The number of themes doesn’t compare to WordPress’ 2,000 themes, but if you look carefully, you will realize that each design distinguishes itself, providing significant options. By adding your own images, logo and text, you are going a long way towards customizing your theme. For those who need more functionality, Gutensite has more robust packages and also provides customized solutions.

For Bill’s site, we decided on just four landing pages

Home, About Bill, What to Expect from a Notary and Contact. I tried to sneak in a couple of modules at the bottom that would provide extra calls to action, but Bill wasn’t interested. He wanted to keep this simple, with just the relevant information. We purchased the domain name from GoDaddy, UpValleyNotaryontheGo.com and I easily managed the domain name transfer myself. I filled out fields for keywords and metadescriptions, made a few last-minute adjustments, uploaded Bill’s new headshot and we were live.

I literally created this site in a matter of hours. It helped that I had used Gutensite before, and I ran into a few issues where I had to reach out to tech support, but the process was seamless. Best of all, Bill now has a terrific new website.

Next up: I’m creating another Gutensite website for a retired banker who is a woodworker. He builds stunning customized tables for his clients. In addition to writing content and building the site, I’m going to manage a photoshoot to get professional images of his work that will flesh out the gallery section of his website. I can’t wait to get started.

Are you interested in a new Gutensite website?

Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing–we’re writers and internet marketing experts.